There's everything you know and what you've yet to learn. Life's about what you care about and the things you don't. Truth is, hate is closer to love than indifference. I simply expect that you are fascinated by, and care about words.

Monday, September 13, 2010

She's a wind of a different sort, my wife is. I don't gear up and she's dragging me to the road, rubbing my face into the asphalt and selling my bike on Craigslist. She's no blowhard, no flash of hot air, no; she's wind. She calls Iowa a "natural selection state" meaning one doesn't wear gear, they're closer to the front of the line with those waiting for Grim Reaper's signature. Gear spelled looks like this "r-i-d-e-r", from another point of view looks like, "f-r-e-e-d-o-m" and from her side looks like "l-o-v-e."

She settles in unavoidable, and carries through me like Spring storms; forever Spring.

Wind dashed against my helmet, blurred the world, roads like bent trees. Relentless breath as unending as the motor beneath me, and the love behind me.

Four-hundred and two miles ridden yesterday. Gear does not make a motorcyclist, but it does help maintain them. Motorcyclists are lovers and fighters; the entire package. The wind is their joy and the other's lives their freedom. They're one giant cumulous cloud rising stratospherically, and only a friendly wave away. They've the power to yank another from their docker's and polo lives, turn the heavenly fan to "high" and send them out.

She's a different kind of wind, my wife is. She pats my helmeted head and says, "let's ride baby." My gloved hands pull the clutch, release the brake, and turn the throttle; the shifter receives a quick tap and we're off. The road rises up to meet us, the wide open envelopes us, and my loving wind, my graceful yet firm freedom, my blessed wife, pats me on the helmet and blows me down yonder.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Thought for the day: So many people criticize, illegitimize or disparage another's church, life, career choices or habits to justify their own existence. They can't seem to enjoy, glean or understand another's church, life, career choices, habits or hurts. When a person does enjoy another, they're offered opportunity for generosity, showing respect for a friend, connecting each other's existence, and quite possibly growing from the experience and/or joyfully enhance or improve someone else's environment.

Furthermore, when someone ails, there is not a single support method. Excellent and varied ways exist that unconditionally uphold and support another. So many believe they deserve to be seen, deserve reward for their action or generosity--Better are those ways you joyfully serve them without being seen, without asserting merit for an action--I assure you believer, your reward will be in Heaven.

Better would be to more broadly define servanthood as the opportunity to take joy of someone in their own environment according to their own needs and to take joy in that experience. Find and then take advantage of the opportunity to be generous.

Friday, September 3, 2010

I live in the land of the unlikely, always striving to live my own life, to accomplish my own accomplishments, create my own success and to establish my identity; and most efforts against profound odds. Uniquely and paradoxically, I become predictably unpredictable, meaning the more I work to establish my own unique identity, the more there is to understand about me.

I live the the land of the unlikely. My wife's family lives in the land of the unlikely. My dad-in-law chased his future wife from the Netherlands to the United States and well before even being awarded citizenship, he was drafted into the American Army to go to Viet Nam, fought and lived, and was again denied citizenship. It was eventually awarded. My mom-in-law's family moved to the U.S., some moved back to the Netherlands, than moved back to the U.S. again. All suffered searing anxiety and stress. I'm not sure that my wife's Grandma ever truly found her identity in the U.S.

My in-laws have spent a total of about 32 years in Europe, many as American citizens, meaning they went "home" as foreigners. We live in the land of the unlikely.

It seems there's so much that separates us, drives us apart. It seems we get hung up on our presuppositions or ideas about any one thing, and many deem petty.

Even Oma K. has lived uniquely. And yet when we were there, on one of her surfaces set a silver teapot, the kind of teapot that graces many Dutch homes. I felt connected and familiar. Familiar things, familiar foods and familiar activities connect many who live unlikely days.

Christ himself lived uniquely. Despite his unique life, and despite my unlikely days, his people were never meant to separate one from another. We're called a "body" and the body, no matter what might seem to separate one part from another, the body continues in support of the rest of the body. Each unique body part, full of their own needs, their own ways and their own identities, exists in tandem, in connection to the rest.

I, like many of you, live an unlikely life living in unlikely days, always striving to live uniquely, to accomplish my own accomplishments, and to establish my identity.